If only Dawson could stumble upon a real top-secret lab while fleeing his tormentors and become infected by a biological weapon, mutating his DNA and giving him superhuman intelligence and reflexes.
Either that, or I was going to have to come up with another way to turn this ordinary schoolboy into a hero.
Or, even better, help him figure out how to do that for himself.
18
The Friday after Easter was April’sChristmas Book Club Challengemeeting. This time, Ashley went first.
‘Well,’ she began, twirling the strings of multicoloured beads draped round her neck. ‘I’ve searched the electoral roll for Hillary West and tried some other online searches but the woman is like a ghost! No social media page or anything. I can’t even find a photograph.’
‘Maybe you should take the hint?’ Frances said, slurping a huge gin-and-tonic. ‘Respect the poor woman’s privacy.’
Ashley ignored this. ‘So, anyway, I decided to do some old-fashioned detective work, and read everything I could that’s been written about her, searching for clues.’
‘And?’ Kiko asked. ‘What did you find?’
Ashley opened the enormous carrier bag she’d brought and tugged out a cork notice board. She proudly held it up for us all to see. There was a map of Nottinghamshire in the centre, and several typed cuttings surrounding it, each with a ribbon pinned from the cutting to a part of the map.
‘Put it down, then, so we can have a proper look!’ Frances said, now interested.
We gathered round. It was somewhat less impressive up close.
‘So, you’ve got articles saying she’s lived the past few years in Sherwood Forest. We already knew that.’ Lucille sniffed.
‘Yes, but this confirms it,’ Ashley replied, undeterred. ‘And, this one here says she’s in her thirties. And this one says she returned to country life. So, she used to live in the country, then didn’t, then did again.’
‘Well, that narrows it down!’ Frances said.
‘It’s a start,’ Ellen said pointedly. ‘What are your next steps?’
‘I’m going to visit her publishers and pretend to be a reporter. And if that fails I’ll break into her agent’s office and see what I can find there.’
‘Oh!’ Kiko said. ‘I don’t think—’
‘Or I could run her agent over, break his leg and then stake out the hospital waiting for Hillary to visit.’
‘You can’t…’
‘Or I could pretend to be another author, sue her for plagiarism and wait for her to turn up at court.’
‘Ashley!’Ellen yelled.
‘I could get a job as a postwoman, find letters with her name on them…’
‘You need help,’ Frances and Lucille muttered at the same time.
‘I bet you could help, Jamie, couldn’t you? You do this sort of thing in your sleep.’
‘That’s not the help I had in mind,’ Lucille said.
‘Failing that, I’ll just knock on doors until I find her. There aren’t that many people living in Sherwood Forest. And I might meet some interesting people along the way. I could start a blog or something, “the Great Hillary West Hunt”.’
Sarah had her phone out, searching Google. ‘Ashley, there are over a hundred thousand people living in the Newark and Sherwood area. That’s a lot of doors.’
‘There are ways to narrow it down,’ Jamie said, grinning in Lucille’s direction.
‘Exactly!’ Ashley said. ‘Like, um, I won’t knock on any ofyourdoors. And, um…’
